stratification

Stratification means arranging something, or something that has been arranged, into categories. By the time you figure out the complex social stratification of your high school class, from jocks to nerds and everything between, you’re ready to graduate.

Stratification is a system or formation of layers, classes, or categories. Stratification is used to describe a particular way of arranging seeds while planting, as well as the geological layers of rocks. But like so many science words, somehow it’s not content to stay in the scientific realm, and must also have a place in the social sphere, where its job is to categorize and arrange people into groups: upper, middle, and lower classes, for example.